Ben Leventhal is a veteran of the restaurant industry. He cofounded the food publication Eater in 2005. He helped found and lead the restaurant reservation platform Resy, which American Express acquired in 2019. And, in 2022, the serial entrepreneur raised $11 million to found Blackbird, a blockchain-based app for restaurants.
On Tuesday, his company Blackbird Labs announced its newest tranche of funding: $50 million in a Series B round led by Silicon Valley investor Spark Capital. Other participants were Coinbase, a16z crypto, Union Square Ventures, and Amex Ventures. The raise was for company equity along with token warrants, or allocations of a yet-to-be-released cryptocurrency. Leventhal, who said he raised the funds in the fourth quarter of 2024, declined to disclose the round’s implied valuation. Blackbird Labs has raised $85 million since 2022.
